Giving in to the Topic of Miley Cyrus

That’s it.  I can’t avoid it any more.  Despite my most desperate attempts to avoid discussing the topic of Miley Cyrus, I can’t keep quiet any longer.  I have refused to hit a like button, share a photo, or weigh in on Sinead’s open letter, or any other open letter, article, or blog denouncing Miley as a slut, whore, and disgrace to the female population and the feminist movement.  But here I go.  I have to purge this rant from my system, so I can move on to more pressing issues.

How I feel about Miley Cyrus is irrelevant.  My greatest concern is the seemingly incessant need of the entire North-American population to discuss the topic of Miley Cyrus.  Why the sudden dismay over a slutty dance routine at the MTV awards?  Why the need to publicly condemn one girl when slut culture abounds all around us?

My theory is this:  Miley Cyrus is the current slut trope that we can all hate, and by doing so, we feel better about ourselves as we continue to placate our minds with shallow pop culture analysis, while simultaneously and unquestioningly consuming corporate culture every minute of every day. 

Why are we shocked by the image of Miley grinding against Robin Thicke; tongue out, ass up?  How different is it from the images of girls grinding against some hulky mass-of-a-man in a ‘Guess’ advertisement? How dare Miley do what every fucking magazine article, bus ad, billboard sign, TV commercial, music video, and corporate rep. is telling her (and millions of other women) to do? If we are truly outraged by Miley’s actions, we should be outraged by the larger context in which such actions are accepted and rewarded.  If we are truly offended by the gendered and sexist music industry, we should be unplugging from the very machine creating it.  An industry exists only when the market supports it.  But if we can all agree to hate Miley Cyrus, we can all agree that the way we contribute to the perpetuation of rape culture has less or no consequence.  By publicly denouncing Miley Cryus, we can feel better about ourselves as we mindlessly consume the same corporate culture that creates the context in which Miley has found her fame and fortune.   This is the same context which we accept and conform to, by the millions, when we accept the corporate culture of GQ, The Swimsuit Edition.   The same corporate culture that requires Miley to exploit her body in order to sell her music, requires of millions of women everyday to exploit themselves; whether in the form of posing in a demeaning and stereotypical gendered clothing ad, flirting for tips as a waitress, or twerking against Robin Thicke during the MTV awards.

Unless we are willing to address the topic of Miley as merely a symptom, or as a function of a much larger and much more complex societal issue, the discussion is moot, invalid, and non-consequential.  If there wasn’t a market for what Miley offers, if there truly was mass outrage at her antics, Miley the brand, would not exist. Instead, however, what seems to have taken hold of the “Miley Situation” is just another example of individualizing a larger issue, of slut shaming and victim blaming.  In this way, we, as a society, are able to ignore the systematic nature of an industry designed, developed, and carefully crafted to exploit young women who eventually and inevitably self destruct one way or another, while, at the same time, remaining ignorant and distracted from the dire global, political, and environmental issues that should be greatly concerning us all.  By attacking Miley as an individual who we can mock, slut shame, demonize, and generally partake in the enjoyment of her destruction as a form of entertainment, we are participating in a modern form of Bread and Circuses; a mere distraction from the truly destructive, and dangerous reality which is unfolding before us, unbeknownst to most, under the guise of harmless entertainment.